Slaven (Bassian)
Slaveny are humanoid aliens native to planet that humans called Bassia of Gliese 876 system. Their first appearance is in 4th page of Moondusted and are driving the story together with humans. Their native name is derived from slava (glory), though in recent times they call themselves Sloveny derived from slovo (letter or speech) due to the fact that Humans mistranslated slava for slave, which natives find it insulting. History The exact date of first appearance of Slaveny is unknown and lost in time. When humans found their kind in 2850 A.D, their technology was similar to humanity's 6th century A.D, having fire, wheel and as it's suggested by remains of swords and crossbows that are discarded as lycanthropy took its toll onto whole species. What do humans found out is - four hundred years ago, Slaveny were one kind led by chieftain and his wife who had two sons - Yuriy and Igor and had their town on eastern side of Bassia. One day, for-now unknown circumstances led to the event that Slaveny call Darkest Night, having their beloved chieftain dead from overwhelming sorrow and whole town burnt to the ground, lost in one night after their celebration of incoming Spring season. On his last dying breath, he appointed Yuriy as new leader of people. They moved to Sacred Grove and wanted to start their life from scratch. But their newfound peace didn't last for long and Yuriy found out way too late that his brother dabbled with Chernobog's dark magic, sacrificing volk and incurred Dazhbog's wrath as result. Like a plague, lycanthropy was spreading among Slaveny. Most of them transformed and turned rabid on spot, causing mass bloodshed in Sacred Grove. Those who survived it were fearing for same fate as their now rabid brethren. Igor after he got satisfied with blood, went with his new group to reign in Sunfall Valley, while Yuriy had no time for sorrow and went to search for advice from forest spirit leshy and for cure. It turned out that cure actually never existed, but it's stuff of their myths. But leshy, knowing that lycanthropy is merciless, broke his own rule of caring for forests and gave Starflower to Yuriy before yearly Kupala event and advised him to brew a potion before full Moon. Yuriy followed his words to last letter and readied his people for lycanthopy. Not so long, full Moon set in and as Yuriy begged Dazhbog to forgive such sacrilege, their souls were dragged into Chernobog's part of realm of Nav. But Dazhbog answered his prayer and battled Chernobog until he gave up and released their souls from his grasp. From that point in time, survivors of transition into lycanthropes started to consider Dazhbog as their patron and painted his symbol, Kolovrat, onto their chests as tribute. And in fact, that symbol protected them from demons who appeared at night to harass their clan. They called themselves Firepaws, while their rabid counterparts are called Bloodclaws. In recent times, Firepaws befriended two Human soldiers in hopes that Humans will help them eradicating Bloodclaws. Physiology Their appearance is, for most part, very human, which actual Humans found it quite creepy and unusual since they considered aliens to have exotic appearance. However their hands have 3 fingers and one thumb, while their feet have 3 bird-like toes. Their arms have such hardened bones that spike-like growths appear on them, giving them extra protection. Their skulls are also hardened, having eyes without pupils and with Tapetum Lucidum layer, causing them to glow in the dark. They appear to be pale-skinned with quite leathery texture, more muscular than humans and most of them are 3 meters tall. Females appear like Human women, though tall and pale-skinned like males with smaller bone spikes on their arms. Much like humans, their hair color ranges from blonde to black. However in contrary to humans, their eye color is NOT genetically linked to hair color (blonde hair = blue eyes, ginger hair = green eyes, black hair = black eyes) and oddly there is no such thing as black or brown eyes among Slaveny, but rather is considered as exotic and unusual feature from Humans. Purple eyes are exclusive only in Bloodclaw clan and are sign of Chernobog's corruption. Their reproduction is also very unusual, often compared to that one with Gaian platypus. Their pregnancy span is whole year and after that period they lay eggs, which crack open after couple days. Their babies mature more rapidly, reaching adulthood at age of 10. Due to lycanthropy, that's also and period when new Slaven displays the ability to transform and is taken by experienced, older Slaveny to learn how to control themselves, eventually completing the rite of passage into adulthood. Their lifespan before lycanthropy was around 50 years, but nowadays is completely unknown. Both Humans and Slaveny believe that lycanthropy gave them immortality, because it's been 400 years since schism of their society happened. In comparison to Romulians, Slaveny are powerful psychics and can skyrocket with training those powers. Their powers are such that they literally have to control their thoughts and emotions, as they can shape the reality with them and their own physical appearance. Perhaps that's also the reason why all Firepaws are behaving in modest fashion, while Bloodclaws are savage and ugly in appearance. Slaveny that are non-psychics are very rare, though still are useful to their society. Society and culture As mentioned above, their society was one with chieftain, with leadership passing from father to son, or from mother to daughter, depending on circumstances surrounding leading family. Leadership passing from father to daughter also happened, as well from mother to son. Leaders differentiated themselves from the others by wearing red and gold colored garbs, but they actually never considered themselves superior than the others. Others worn brown garbs. According to Yuriy's talking with Humans, Slaveny did have problems, but not as much as nowadays. They were and still are hunters and gatherers, having certain days to praise certain events in nature. Both males and females were and still are very important in order to survive in forest lands. They together hunt and gather food and build things, which for Humans is very strange. Both male and female are praised as bringers of life. In recent years, due to mental scar from Darkest Night event, they don't use fire in their rituals as much as before. Majority of females had the power to see into the future, while males had the power to summon elements of nature to aid them. Common feature both for male and female psychics was to communicate with spirits of the dead. What Humans found unusual in their culture is the fact that their major celebrations almost are connected to Romulian ones, even though they do not share same planet. Equinoxes and Solstices are just few days away from Romulian ones and number of rituals are implemented to invoke everything good that their gods can bring and to satisfy both forest and ancestral spirits. Even outside celebrations, Slaveny tended to pay tributes to their gods by crafting clothing and pottery with their motifs. Such craft was especially praised and Slaveny had to trade a lot for them in comparison to ordinary things. Their housing usually consisting of tall stone foundation with stone stairs that led to wooden exterior covered with large roof. Most houses have two rooms - one is bedroom, another is multi-purposed, where family gathers together around fire pit in the middle of it, cooking food or crafting stuff. Sometimes they place trophies of their favorite animals. Religion Firepaws are polytheists with some beliefs having roots in shamanism. Their patron god before schism was Svarog, but nowadays is Dazhbog, his son. His appearance depends on seasons - with Summer, Dazhbog was young adult, radiating light and banishing evil and bitter cold. With Winter, he becomes old and lame and according to Slaven beliefs, he liked to visit his people and gift food and gold to them, only to be reborn on Kolyada as baby Sun. But no matter the season, he had features of volk - yellow eyes, pronounced fangs and claws on feet and hands and always worn tall headdress made of volk's fur. Slaveny strictly avoided killing his children volkovy, even in self-defense. But unfortunately, Igor broke the rule and provoked Dazhbog's wrath. They also believe that world consists of 3 realms - Yav (realm of mortals), Prav (celestial realm of their gods) and Nav (realm of the dead). With Equinoxes and Solstices, they believed that barriers between realms become thin, as well and during nights when demons come out to cause issues in the woods. Everybody, except for Chernobog was praised, who is considered as the only true god by Bloodclaws and who before schism was only mentioned in feasts, so he won't bring demons to their society. During Autumn (Zadushnitse) and Spring (Vesnin Dan) Equinox, Firepaw Slaveny liked to mask themselves into various creatures from their imagination, with intention to bring fear. And fear at those points in time were considered as banishment of whatever evil spirit might dwell in them, bringing good luck to their community. In Spring Equinox, Slaveny also liked to paint eggs of wild bird creatures either in red or in nature's motifs, as token of appreciation of Dazhbog. One ritual to invoke fertility was to craft a clay idol of Yarilo and to bury within their house's foundation, with intention to appease him and therefore bring them a child. Other gods of Firepaw Slaven pantheon: * Mokosh (goddess of women and crafting) * Perun (god of thunder, enemy of Veles and bringer of rain) * Veles (god of forests and its animals, enemy of Perun) * Vesna (goddess of Spring season, enemy of Morana) * Morana (queen of the dead, goddess of death and Winter season) * Lada (goddess of love and joy) * Radgost (god of homes and hospitality) * Yarilo (god of fertility) * Svetovit (god of war) Trivia * Whole Slaven race is obviously inspired by real-life ancient Slavs, altogether with rituals and Pantheon. * Their language is inspired by real-life Slovio with some words taken from each Slavic national language. * Their alphabet is Glagoljica . Notes of author During first days of creating this project, it was actually nameless and originally it was intended to be a story inspired by a real war that happened before I was born and to have a protagonist fighting both for his life and against his inner demons who were very real in his eyes. That protagonist was inspired by a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sr%C4%91an_Aleksi%C4%87 real soldier who saved his foreign friend at the cost of his own life] among other soldiers and civilians who wanted only to survive. I wanted to break that urban fantasy thing where every story looks like Twilight, but after making basically a graveyard of first chapters full of plotholes and bad writing, I eventually scrapped that. I don't know how and I forgot how, but it clicked to me to look at werewolves and Slavic mythology on Google. Both those topics grew on me and I had way too much ideas when I saw them. In meantime, I looked at Avatar movie and I absolutely adored it, mostly for rich world building and premise where primitive aliens fight against technologically advanced humans. Then I thought what if I make a thing that is, instead of being environmentalist like Avatar, I basically explore and talk about issues of Slavic society?, which by the way it was also and topic of my previous drafts. And then I went into 2-years long journey of typing whole thing from scratch, only to draw it in 2017. Humanoid, pale-skinned design of Slaveny is intentional. It was made from the fact that, not even after so many decades after WW2, most Westerner, Allied countries do not consider Slavs as legitimate humans. Most Slavs in real life face discrimination because of things that they could not change, in similar fashion as Irish folks back when America was young country. Yet, most of those who discriminate are completely devoid of any knowledge about Slavic countries, they just hate for sake of hate. In my mind, it felt that Slavs were really alien for the rest of the world and that we do not belong here. I made them evolving from birds, because I consider birds as symbol of absolute freedom beside wolves, and because most Slavs use eagles in their coat of arms. Darkest Night event and later on schism of Slaven society into Firepaw and Bloodclaw clan would be considered as reflection of whole situation in Slavic countries. Whole societies after fall of Iron Curtain being divided, people fought each other just because they didn't share same opinion/beliefs. I grew up with typical our nation VS theirs belief fed trough schools I was in, but after looking at many similar stories from that war linked above, I went into conclusion that whole situation wasn't like that. It was actually genuinely good people fighting against warmongers to maintain whatever of their life remained. Both good and evil people existed in all Slavic nations, but sadly I've found that out only when I became adult and went out of school. Chernobog as evil, dark god in my story is basically the manifestation of real-life term. Fueled by negative emotions, he manipulates, gaslights and drives people into madness and doing evil things. Dazhbog, though he punished Slaveny with werewolf curse, represents the other side of Slavs, the need to maintain whatever peace remained after schism. Since the lore for Belobog was really scarce, I chose Dazhbog for that role - being locked into battle against Chernobog since time immemorial, banishing his darkness and evil. Also for me it made a lot of sense to add Chernobog as antagonist of the story, mainly because real-life historians speculate that he is not native Slavic god, but rather created under the influence of arriving Christianity and therefore equal to Christian devil. Category:Species in Moondusted universe Category:Lore